17.4.06

several months since last blog so i'll make this one as meaningless and petty as possible

a pal pointed me too this rather interesting addon for the Firefor webrowser today, a tool to find quality kooky bits of the web. some might call is a Web 2.0 kinda beast see here

went to Istanbul a little while back, great place, great stuff going on. a pal wanted to skipp the country for a little while, id been to istanbul before and wouldnt leave an opportunity to go there again. needless to say, this trip didnt really have to much to do with the words economy and efficiency, but hey thats a perk of no longer being a student of the poor kind.

found this book on Cultural J, published by Istanbul University, 'Islam in Public - Turkey, Iran and Europe' ed Nilufer Gole and Ludwig Ammann (2006). Interesting interview with Nilufer Gole here.

here are a few tales of how ummahtic the place is,

- got smuggled into the istanbul uni by a libertarian type student, interesting tour beautiful campus with pretty stylish students

- folks at a waqf(religious endowment) in the Sultan Ahmet kept showering me and my pal with Said Nursi books (one was in bangla!), beautiful qurans, tea and love generally....

- spent a while at IRCICA, a historical research centre that forcusses on Islamic civilisation and is set in a flipin OTTOMAN PALACE!

- the azan for fajr (daybreak prayer) pulls you from bed into the mosque very special time in the old centre of the city.

-iskander kebab

was quite proud of turkey, good luck to them Allah make it easy.

folks, please go and see..

V for Vendetta..think FightClub and 1984 and Brave New World and Divine Intervention.

watch out for Stephen Fry, plenty of uses of the word 'bollox' and a few arresting fireworks

comic book entiusiasts - 'this was nothing like the comic...sorry 'graphic novel', this was meant to be about thatcher;s britain'